2003 March | Natural Health

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro – The Machame route (Whiskey)

Author: Koos De Klerk

When we, my wife Agnes and myself, decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro it was 14 months in advance.

We did some research on the internet about altitude sickness and attended talks about the adventure to come.

The reason for this article is that I want to let people, with plans to climb Mount Kilimanjaro,know in my humble way what to expect, what to do and what not.

The first part ,as you start your adventure after your admin at the gate is completed and the porters and guide are ready to go, is the 4+ hours ascend through the

rain forest. We did it in September 2009 and had no rain although the ground is damp and cold. The rain forest is just something you have to experience!

The ascend is slow as the guide sets a pace for your body to acclimatize and to better your changes to summit.If you do not follow the guide’s advice you will not summit as your body will give in. We witnessed people coming down in real trouble.

We met a Malaizian lady afterwards at the hotel where we stayed who did summit but were temporarily blind while summiting . As the air is so thin up there you can expect to experience some difficulty in breathing etc.

But everything is not so bad. We were extremely lucky to not have had any bad experience what so ever, no headaches, no nausea. Agnes, my wife did find it difficult to breath at one stage close to the summit. She say she wanted to cry as the emotions took over but she could not breath easily so she stopped crying (some humor in the adventure).

At this stage, when you pass the Glazier, you are on your way to have a successful summit.

We experienced a very strong cold wind as we moved up to the summit during the night. We started just before midnight. The magic is to see all the small lightspots of the headlights going up the dark mountain. Looks like a train in the night. (1.3km rise in altitude.)

This is where the right gear comes in play. My gloves was not good enough although it is snow gloves. My finger tips was cold then I lost all feeling in them. (Luckily it was only for a short spell..hour or 2).

Without our guides we would not have achieved our dream.

This is something that one have to do once in your lifetime.

Lets us get to the what to do’s.

To help you with breathing there is a product on the market called: “Dymox.” We only took a quarter of a pill the day before summit day and a quarter on summit day. You can try it out a couple of days before you go to see what the affect it has on your body. We experienced pins and needles in our finger tips for a minute or two. If you take more you may experience side effects such as tiredness etc.

Then while you are on the mountain, you will experience a loss of appetite. Don’t skip breakfast, lunch or dinner. I skipped the coffee after 3 days up the mountain. In our group we had somebody that skipped some dinners and he did not make it to the top.

Drink your 3 litres of water everyday. We had daypacks with 3lt waterbags and a tube that we sipped on as we moved at a very slow pace up the mountain.

What people don’t tell is the atmosphere at the campsites every night. As you arrive at the camp for the night your small little tent is already up and you can take a break and rest, wash up and have dinner then it is off to bed – thin mattress and sleeping bag.

While all this is going on the porters are chatting away happily and even having some sing-a-longs, magic.

What did we take to help us to have a successful summit?

In our daypacks we had nutritional bars, Mannabears, energy bars.

The products are from the #1 Company in the Health & Wellness Industry – Mannatech!

The Mannabears are something like sugar coated jellybabies, but filled with fruit and vegetable nutrients.That helped our bodies to function at a very high level.

http://www.mannapages.com/koos

We believe that with the products of Mannatech we gave ourselves an almost guarantee to summit!.

The products of Mannatech is all about Glyconutrients. It is the vital “sugars” that our bodies need to function at optimal level.

I hope you found this article interesting as I am a novice in writing articles but wanted to share my life experience with you and hope you will after reading it decide to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

I had my 54th birthday up on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Koos De Klerk

Centurion

Gauteng

South Africa.

katrade@absamail.co.za

About the Author:

I am 54y young and love the outdoors.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

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